Jar: C.2 & A-2020

Titles

Jar

Maker(s)

Potter: Hanssen, Louis

Entities

• Jar and cover
• Lidded jar

Categories

• Stoneware
• Studio Ceramics

Description

Stoneware jar, carved and glazed; cover with knob

Tall, circular, thinly-thrown, red-brown stoneware jar with gently convex, fluted sides and short, wide, slightly everted neck. Domed cover with central, inverted cone-shaped knob. Dark brown glaze. Underside flat and unglazed.

Notes

History note: Given by Louis Hanssen to the potter Emmanuel Cooper. Inherited by the donor, David Horbury, who was Cooper's partner for thirty years.

Legal notes

Given by David Horbury, 2020

Place(s) associated

• Westbourne Grove ⪼ London ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2020-01-27) by Horbury, David

Dating

20th Century
Circa 1962 CE - 1963 CE

Note

Louis Hanssen (1934-68) was originally a poet and theatre designer in Canada before settling in England. In 1960, he met and married the Australian potter Gwyn Hanssen Piggott (then Gwyn John), who taught him to throw; they set up a studio together in Westbourne Grove, London and both exhibited to acclaim at Liberty, Heal's and Primavera, then London's premier craft and design shop. The couple separated in 1965 and Hanssen died suddenly in 1968 from an accidental drugs overdose.

While his output was perforce limited, Hanssen’s work is of exceptional quality. The influence of Lucie Rie, a friend who he and Gwyn met while attending classes at Camberwell School of Art, is apparent; and he also drew on the work of other contemporary ceramic artists, including Emmanuel Cooper, to whom he gave this pot. Cooper later included it in the seminal Crafts Council exhibition, 'The Maker’s Eye' (1982).